The Pragmatics of Greetings: Teaching Speech Acts in the EFL Classroom W

B. BRICKLIN ZEFF

Japan

The Pragmatics of Greetings: Teaching Speech Acts in the EFL Classroom

W hen Taro's name was called, he stepped away from the tired and disoriented group of Japanese students who had just completed the long flight from Tokyo to Toronto and a bus ride to the University reception where they would meet their Canadian host families. His host mother walked right up to him and gave him a hug.

Taro stood with his arms at his sides looking uncomfortable, if not alarmed. He did not know how to react. Japanese do not touch during an initial greeting.When his host mother ended the hug, he gave a nervous laugh. She smiled to disguise the awkwardness of the moment.

videos and participating in class discussions on the speech act of greetings.When her host mother gave her a hug, she hugged back with a smile on her face. She also knew that the appropriate response to her host mother's greeting of "Nice to meet you" was a reply of "Nice to meet you, too."

Taro was not the only one in the group unprepared for their initial meeting with a host family. Although they had studied the English language before their trip, the group lacked an understanding of its pragmatics and, in this case, the speech act of greetings.

As a language teacher, I have long realized that knowing the words of a language is only part of speaking it. Knowing how to interpret a communicative act is equally important, and it needs to be taught explicitly.Therefore, I make this learning a regular part of the class experience. As the chaperone for the group of Japanese students in this anecdote, I was able to witness the benefits of pragmatics instruction when a host mother greeted another of the exchange students, a girl who had participated in my class the year before. She knew what to expect through watching

Greetings are one of the few speech acts that children are taught explicitly in their native language (Kakiuchi 2005).Yet, the communicative function that greetings serve is usually understood as subordinate to other purposes in the ultimate goal of communication (DuFon 1999). In the language classroom, this subordinate position often means that teaching greetings is neglected; too little attention is paid to the roles that greetings play in various cultures and how these roles may affect the ultimate goal of communication.This article will provide background information on this important speech act and instructional strategies for use in the classroom to help teachers equip their students with a critical component to successful interactions.This article also describes four awareness-raising tasks that introduce the greeting speech act

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as a cycle of explicit pragmatic instruction, including keeping a greeting journal, watching contemporary TV shows, using discourse completion tasks (DCTs), and participating in role plays and mingles.

THE PRAGMATICS OF GREETINGS

When most people think of a greeting, they consider it as the first words spoken in a turn-taking routine used to acknowledge the presence of another person or persons (Goffman 1971). A greeting can be as simple as a nod of the head or a wave of the hand. It also can be a statement that forms an adjacency pair, in that there is an initiation of contact followed by a response, both of which can be either verbal or nonverbal and may conclude with a warm embrace (Omar 1991). Greetings appear to be a universal construct in that all languages engage them in some form. Even animals have some kind of greeting, as found by primatologist Jane Goodall in her work with chimpanzees (Goodall 2007) and as evidenced by watching common pets greet other animals--including humans.

The form a greeting takes, as with all speech acts, depends mostly on the context of the encounter (Ellis 1994). Context considers the relationship of the people--are they friends, acquaintances, or perfect strangers? Is there a power difference, as with a boss and employee? What is the degree of imposition, which includes both temporal and spatial concerns: Are they in a hurry, or is the distance between the two people somehow constraining? Maybe the relationship has certain rules that make an overly friendly greeting seem inappropriate at the time. For English as a foreign language (EFL) learners, the ability to make an appropriate greeting is often the first opportunity to demonstrate communicative competence.

Although greetings may seem simple and formulaic in their wording, they are culturally saturated speech acts that can determine the course of an encounter well past the initial exchange (DuFon 1999). For example, both the Japanese boy and his host mother in the opening anecdote experienced discomfort that may have stilted the early days of an important relationship.The content and delivery of a greeting influences a first impression and can also create a lasting one.

TEACHING GREETING PRAGMATICS

According to Bardovi-Harlig and Mahan-Taylor, "The chief goal of instruction in pragmatics is to raise learners' pragmatic awareness and give them choices about their interactions in the target language" (2003, 38). It may not seem obvious to language learners how native speakers navigate through these choices. Indeed, even though instructors cannot teach students how to act in every given context, they must provide students with a number of choices in a variety of contexts to enable them to develop a bank of potentially useful options. The typical second language (L2) classroom may provide too few examples of this extremely important phase of communication. As a remedy, instructors should assess the types of situations students encounter and give them a variety of examples within each situation.With some knowledge of the most useful greeting routines and the variety of greetings one might encounter, students can begin to make their own choices and create their own greeting routines, moving them closer toward communicative competence in the target language.The goal is to provide input and an environment for interpreting the communicative act (Bardovi-Harlig and MahanTaylor 2003). Although providing more than one or two greeting options may seem like a lot of work, most students will encounter only

Too little attention is paid to the roles that greetings play in various cultures and how these roles

may affect the ultimate goal of communication.

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Asking the students to keep a journal of the greetings they experience in both their own and the

target language brings awareness to the function.

a few contexts and will not need an unlimited greetings vocabulary.

I use the following four awareness-raising tasks in my first-year speaking courses with college-aged students at a low-intermediate level of English.The students have had very limited experience communicating with native speakers.

TASK 1: KEEPING A GREETING JOURNAL

Journaling is an effective method for selfreflection in language acquisition (DuFon 1999).Asking the students to keep a journal of the greetings they experience in both their own and the target language brings awareness to the function. I begin my classroom instruction on greetings with awareness-raising questions that draw attention to the key points of the greeting speech act by allowing students to reflect on their own experience and knowledge. I ask them to answer three primary questions in a greeting journal:

1 . Who are some of the people you greet on a typical day?

2 . What expressions do you use when you greet these people?

3 . Why do you greet some people differently from others?

These questions prompt students to discuss the kinds of greetings they have experienced with native English speakers and with speakers of their own language. I ask students to (1) observe the many differences in the way one greets in an authentic exchange and (2) compare them with the phrases and routines they have learned from their English textbooks while considering how to apply this comparison to experiences a college-level

student might encounter.Thinking of situations in which they would use greetings helps students gain awareness of available patterns and routines and of what is communicated by their use.

In the instructions for this activity, students are asked to observe and address the following three items (based on suggestions made by Brown and Levinson 1987) on a daily basis for one week:

1 . The "role" of two speakers who greet each other. Is one in a position of power, or is each of equal status? (Students may need examples of power versus equality status in order to imagine their roles concretely.)

2 . The relationship of the two participants. Are they close friends or merely acquaintances?

3 . The imposition of the act.Where does it occur? Are there any temporal limits or spatial constraints (e.g., busy hallway, open sidewalk, subway) on the exchange?

Students record this information along with the words that are said and the observed accompanying facial expressions or body language. Over the period of one week, students share one of their observations during each class session.This exercise is language in use, and through this work, the pragmatics of language is laid out for comment and discussion.Two or three examples per student over the week are sufficient for this task. An example of a journal entry might be the following:

[date]

Two teachers meet in the hallway. Equal roles.

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They seem to be friends but not close.

They are waiting for the elevator.The area in front of the elevator is small.

Hey Jim, how's it going?

Good. How was your weekend?

Great. Did you read that email from the Dean?

Yes. I will come to your office later to talk about it.

OK. See you later.

The mother greets him with her full name and "I've heard so much about you." He responds with, "Nice to meet you, too." I pose a series of questions to my students about the exchange: What are some other possible responses? What effects might a different response have on the boy and girl's relationship? What does the boy's response of "Nice to meet you, too" communicate to the mother? We end the discussion of this scene by examining the boy's response of "Nice to meet you, too" that implies the mother said, "Nice to meet you," which she did not. It is clear in the context of the scene that his response of "Nice to meet you, too" was conciliatory.We discuss why he would want to be as nice as possible.

A key part of this task is the accompanying class discussion, in which I ask students questions such as, "How could the greeting be done differently?" or "What might create awkwardness or cause problems with this type of greeting?"

TASK 2: OBSERVING AND DOCUMENTING GREETINGS ON TV SHOWS

TV shows present a variety of greeting situations. One series that works well for my students is the American high school drama The O.C., which aired on network television from 2003 to 2007 and follows the life of an economically disadvantaged boy who is taken in by a family living in the affluent Southern California suburb of Orange County (or OC, for short). I use this series to discuss the following types of conversations: intimate greetings within families (such as one might have during a homestay experience), conversations with peers (such as one might have with another student or when making a new friend), and serious interactions (such as one might have with a person of authority, as in a job interview).

As an in-class activity, I show parts of an episode, stopping at key points to discuss the interaction. For example, in Episode 3 from Season 1 of The O.C. (called "The Gamble"), the main character, the high school boy, meets for the first time the mother of a girl he likes.

Addressing what is inferred from the way something is said versus just translating the words and grammar of the sentences makes this type of analysis more pragmatic. Studies have shown that EFL students without the chance to experience the culture firsthand tend to focus on the grammar and vocabulary and are not aware of the way language is used (Bardovi-Harlig and D?rnyei 1998). Observing and documenting a speech act in a TV show brings culturally relevant experience into the classroom.

My school library bought multiple copies of the first season of The O.C. so that students could watch nearly 12 hours of English spoken by native speakers. Originally, the series served as a representation of American teenage life through clothing, music, slang, and age-specific concerns.What once made it contemporary now dates it. But the basis of the situations for language instruction purposes still holds.

Comedies often provide examples of people using language awkwardly. One of my favorite comedies to demonstrate such awkwardness is The Big Bang Theory, which follows a group

Observing and documenting a speech act in a TV show brings culturally relevant

experience into the classroom.

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of four male scientists at a Southern California university.The characters are "geeks" and often make inappropriate comments in social situations. In Season 2, Episode 9 (called "The White Asparagus Triangulation"), the main characters meet a beautiful, blond female character. Because of their inexperience speaking to women and general discomfort in new social situations, the greeting speech act appears unnatural; native English speakers tend to find it quite funny. In this episode, the only greeting word that is used is "Hello," but it is said with many different intonations that cause the woman to be noticeably uncomfortable and to leave abruptly, an outcome that was not the intention of the characters. In this example, students witness how greetings do not always go well even for native speakers and that the inappropriateness is expressed with facial expression and tone, not just word choice. Looking at aspects such as intonation, stress, and facial expressions in communication is new to many students but essential for language competence.

Another topic that works well for classroom lessons is the physical touching involved in greetings. In many American TV shows, one finds examples of hugging, kissing, and handshaking. Students see how physical touching in greetings changes based on relationships and situations; one character may be greeted with a hug and another may receive a handshake.Variety TV, such as talk shows or shows where the host interviews a guest, is a great source for demonstrating variations in the physical nature of greetings.The host might hug some guests and shake hands with others. For this topic, the discussion can focus on the levels of intimacy of the physical action and what this says about a relationship.We also discuss whether a handshake rather than a hug could be a practical decision; for example, the person being greeted might be rather tall and a hug around the neck would be difficult. I find it particularly insightful when students volunteer what was wrong or different from what was expected.

American television programs like The O.C. and The Big Bang Theory are generally available

for purchase and download on Amazon, iTunes,Vudu, andYouTube (for example, see show/theoc and show/bigbangtheory).

TASK 3: USING DISCOURSE COMPLETION TASKS (DCTs)

A DCT is a form-focused task that gives students an opportunity to record language reviewed in a contextual format. It can be used for more than merely focusing attention on a given speech act or event. A typical DCT will name actors and a situation that a student considers in order to fill in or select language that is appropriate for the interaction. One exercise I use has two parts. First, I provide students DCTs with five greeting contexts and ask them to work in groups to decide what would be the most appropriate language to use in each given context. I then choose one scenario and ask them to respond as quickly as possible with a written answer. Here are five scenarios I have used successfully with my students:

1 . You are a student of XYZ University. You are back in your hometown during winter vacation. In the supermarket, by chance you see a teacher of yours from high school. Provide an appropriate greeting.

2 . Your good friend has been studying abroad in the United States.You decide to meet her at the airport when she returns home.You have not seen her for a year. She comes out of the gate. Provide an appropriate greeting.

3 . You and a friend are walking down the hallway at your school.Your English teacher enters the hallway and says hello. Provide an appropriate greeting.

4 . You are working in an office. One day, an important person comes to your office to have a meeting with your boss.The person makes eye contact with you. Provide an appropriate greeting.

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